S-Rank Syndrome
by ShisukoDesu
Summary: A-Rank Missing-Nin? Why would Gato settle for second-to-the-best when everyone knows money can get you anything and everything? A Wave Mission that goes horrible wrong, a new family to call his own, and the tests of his allegiances all await Naruto. AU, Akatsuki Naruto.


**And so after several years of reading fanfiction, I've finally decided to contribute to the massive community with an AU of my own. I think it's an original idea, or at least I have yet to read someone else make one like it. I hope I did the Naruto-verse justice with this. Let's all hope this isn't a total train wreck.  
****Read and review, please. I really appreciate them.  
****Disclaimer: Last time I checked, I was neither Japanese nor a responsible adult. I can therefore conclude I don't own Naruto.**

* * *

The rogue samurai shuffled his feet nervously as the door to his boss' office creaked open. The dim light that peeked in from the hallway was the only form of illumination in dark room, save for a lone, flickering light suspended over the desk of their employer, Gato, head of the eponymous Gato Company. He certainly wasn't much, really no more than a short businessman, but in the environment of his personal office he looked quite intimidating. His eyes were concealed behind pitch-black shades, and he wore a Western-type business suit, crisp and clean. Behind a table scattered with papers, he sat imposingly on his elevated throne-like chair, cast in an ominous shadow by the overhead bulb. Flanking his sides were his two personal ronin, Waraji and Zori.

The messenger gulped and shut the door behind him as he entered. He could feel the gazes of the two stronger samurai boring into his neck. Gato himself stared emotionlessly at him. "G-Gato-sama..."

"I trust you bring me news about the bridge-builder, Tazuna?" Gato queried, not moving from his spot.

"Y-Yes sir." stuttered the rogue swordsman as he got on one knee. "Y-Your scouts have reported him successfully entering and requesting a mission in Konoha, sir. They expect that in a day's time, sir, that he'll be heading back to Nami no Kuni with a ninja escort."

"Of what rank?" asked Gato.

"W-We do not know sir." nervously answered the swordsman. Telling Gato you didn't have information usually spelt trouble for you. "H-However by the state of poverty that Nami no Kuni is in, we expect all he could afford is a C-Rank mission."

"Hmm" Gato drummed his fingers in thought across his polished oak desk. "That would mean either a chunin squad or a genin cell, am I correct?"

"Y-Yes, sir."

"And what do you propose as a solution to this problem?"

"S-Sir, one of your contacts has managed to get a hold of Zabuza Momochi and his young apprentice. As an A-Rank missing-nin of Kirigakure, he should be more than enough for whatever Konoha can send..."

"A-Rank?" interrupted Gato. The samurai began to sweat nervously when Gato's lips curled into a disapproving frown. "Correct me if I am mistaken, but A-Rank is _not_ the highest classification of ninja. Am I right?"

"Y-Yes sir, but all Momochi needs to bring down is a drunk and a few inexperienced ninja. Surely hiring an S-Rank ninja would only be a waste of money..."

"Ha!" cut in Gato. "A waste of money. You say that as if you think I'd actually waste my gold on anything as stupid as a ninja, much less missing-nin. They're only slightly better pieces of trash than you are." The rogue gulped. Gato sneered. "No, if I'm gonna scam some stupid shinobi, I might as well make the most out of it. What do my contacts have on S-Rank ninja?"

"Uh, there is one contact sir. W-We don't like to associate much with him though."

"Oh? And do, pray tell, why don't you?"

The rogue samurai gulped when he saw Waraji and Zori draw their blades and point them at him. "N-Nothing, sir! He's just a bit scary is all... his name is Zangei, all the way in the Land of Fire. Says he knows a bunch of fellows that call themselves the Akatsuki..." At Gato's signal, his two bodyguards sheathed their blades, much to the messenger's relief.

"Continue." An evil smirk crept its way up Gato's face. "I'm very interested to do business with this Akatsuki."

* * *

"Sure is humid around here." commented a pink-haired genin as she walked with her team along a worn and beaten path. She was absently swatting at the increasing number of mosquitoes that had begun to appear around her. Fog had begun to settle in around the denser vegetation and wider trees.

"It's to be expected, Sakura. We _are_ nearing Nami no Kuni." lazily answered a silver-haired ninja. One eye was covered by a headband marking him as a Konoha shinobi; the other was tracked on a familiar orange-colored pocket book. He wore the standard combat pants, shirt, and vest of Konoha jounin.

"We're almost there? But it's been so boring!" complained a short, spiky-haired blonde. He had on a jumpsuit in the most atrocious shade of _kill-me-now _orange that covered his scrawny frame. His face, marked with three whisker-like lines on each cheek, had an impatient frown as he jogged at the rear of the formation. "I want some action! We haven't come across, like, _any_, enemies since the beginning of this mission, and it's been _three days_."

"And you should well be thankful for that, brat." scolded their client, a middle-aged man. He was far from the drunken mess he'd been when they'd been introduced to their client, but he still showed an intolerance for 'brats'. "I wouldn't trust a bunch of kids like you to protect me anyway."

"Tazuna-san, I assure you my genin are perfectly capable of fending off any bandits we might come across." The jounin-sensei gave a perverted giggle as he turned another page in his orange book. "And if we come across any missing-nin, I assure you it's nothing I can't handle." He tapped his vest with his left hand. "I am a jounin after all."

It could well be said that the past three days almost entirely consisted of scenes such as that. Sakura made random comments about the environment or something, Naruto whined about the lack of enemy shinobi, Tazuna made some sort of jab at Naruto, and Kakashi responded almost mechanically to whoever was distracting him the most from his book. Of course Sasuke was there too, but he didn't really _do _anything besides grunt and give the occasional complaint.

"If my geography is correct, we should be reaching the sea that separates Mizu and Nami no Kuni from the mainland in just a few minutes." Sakura had being keeping track of their estimate location in their head over the course of the entire journey. She did agree with Naruto that it _was _quite boring, especially since they had to move at Tazuna's civilian pace, but she would rather die before agreeing with Naruto or complaining about it as obnoxiously as he did.

"Excellent work, Sakura." said Kakashi, flipping to another page in his book. "If we're lucky, then that means we should be able to make it to Wave Country without any enemy contact."

_'Luckily' _thought Naruto sarcastically as he trudged along behind Tazuna and his broody Uchiha teammate. He was about to voice his thoughts when his enhanced senses picked up on something. He stopped suddenly, ears slightly twitching as he tried to detect the sound.

"Hn, what is it dobe?" asked an annoyed Sasuke. Their whole party had stopped because of Naruto, and he wanted to get this stupid mission out of the way as soon as possible so he could go back to training. At the rate he was going, Itachi'd die of old age before Sasuke even had a ghost of a chance against him in battle. "Have you finally realized-"

He was cut off by a wide-eyed Kakashi, who grabbed Tazuna and tthe bridge-builder to the ground. "Duck!"

All the members of Team Seven barely hit the deck before a giant three-bladed scythe whizzed through the air and embedded itself deep into a tree nearby. The scythe was unusual; it had not one, but three razor-sharp crimson-red blades of decreasing size, each curving more and more inwards. They were all attached to a polished handle of the same color, mottled with very faint blood stains, which seemed to be connected at the end to a rather large chain.

"Ah, fuck! There goes an easy kill!" The chain was suddenly stretched taut as the scythe was yanked out of the tree and into the hand of one of two figures that stepped out of the mist. One severely crept out the genin; he had a pale white hood around his head and a facemask to hide his mouth, exposing only his green, pupil-less eyes and a slashed Taki hitai-ite. The second one, the one with the scythe in hand, had slicked back silver hair and a cocky smirk on his face, despite having missed his first attack. He had a weird silver pendant around his neck, a circle with a triangle inscribed in it, and had two spools of wire on his hip that seemed to be the origin of the chain from earlier. Both of them wore a dark black cloak with red cloud embroideries, except the silver-haired man's cloak was open in the front, revealing his bare muscular chest. "Oh well, Jashin-sama always appreciates kills I have to work for!"

"Hidan, shut up." The other ninja's voice was cold as he chided his partner, Hidan. "This job is worth a lot of money so the faster we get this done the better."

"Who are you? Identify yourselves and state your purpose!" Kakashi had brandished his kunai while he had his other hand ready to unveil his Sharingan at a moment's notice, his orange book nowhere in sight. His genin had taken shaky, defensive stances around a terrified looking Tazuna.

"Us? We're here for him." Hidan pointed at the Wave citizen, whose face had taken the color of a bedsheet. "If you're gonna be cooperative and hand him over, I promise to make your deaths as painful and ceremonial as possible." He licked his lips and bared his teeth at the prospect of new sacrifices. "You'll make Jashin-sama really happy."

"I'm afraid we can't do that." Kakashi started channeling chakra to his legs as he identified the two in front of them. He didn't know much about either of the two, but now he knew they were targeting Tazuna, and that was unacceptable. "He is our client and as such it is our duty to protect him, upon our honor as ninja of Konoha."

"Hidan, you suck at negotiating." commented the hooded missing-nin, to the indignance of his partner. "Sharingan Kakashi," Sasuke tensed when he heard the manner with which the enemy referred to his sensei. Sharingan? "You are aware, I presume, that this man has breached the terms of his contract?" Tazuna began to squirm and sweat as the ninja spoke. "He applied for a C-Rank mission under the claim that bandits would be the worst of your troubles, much less two S-Rank missing-nin."

The genin's eyes nearly bugged out of their heads, and Kakashi stiffened. His eye scanned the environment, looking for any detail he could use as he calculated the odds of defeating his two adversaries. 'I'm definitely unprepared for combat against an S-Rank ninja, much less two of them. Plus, I'd have to defend the genin and Tazuna.' thought Kakashi, gripping his blade tightly. 'Of course, they could be lying, but nonetheless I can sense these two have massive chakra reserves, so I have to take them seriously at any rate.' "How do you know that?" said the one-eyed jounin. "That information is classified to any non-Konoha shinobi."

"Does it matter?" the man dismissed Kakashi's interrogation. "I'll definitely be taking your bounty, Hatake Kakashi, but if you hand over the bridge builder, we'll spare your little genin here." The ex-Taki shinobi ignored his partner's complaints about 'blasphemy to Jashin-sama.'

Kakashi narrowed his eyes and lifted his headband, revealing a spinning three-tomoe Sharingan and a jagged scar across his left eye. He didn't notice Sasuke glaring evilly at the back of his head. Kakashi shot across the short distance between them with speed the genin had never seen their sensei use before. "Raikiri(Lightning Cutter)!"

The son of the White Fang shoved his lightning-infused hand through the heart of the shinobi in less than a second after the execution of his signature technique. "I'm afraid I can't allow that."

Much to the Hatake's surprise, however, the odd shinobi did not collapse to the floor like a ragdoll, as most people would after being stabbed through the heart. Instead, the man was rocked with laughter, a deep, booming sound that eerily rang throughout the foggy air. "You're hilarious, Hatake-san. You definitely are."

Kakashi cried out as he felt something pierce his hand. He yanked his hand out and took a giant step back from the other ninja, noticing that aside from the blood of the Taki-nin, there was a deep gash going across the palm of his hand. "It's going to take more than that to be able to take me down." As the hooded shinobi spoke in his cold voice, black threads seemed to stretch out from within his chest and sew shut the gaping hole Kakashi's Raikiri had left. Within seconds nothing was left of the fatal wound besides a cross-shaped scar on the man's chest. "Hidan, I have a present for you!"

The same black threads that had seemed to sew the nin's chest shut jutted out of the man's cloak sleeves and extended until they were just in front of his partner. Hidan licked his lips and dabbed his finger in the tendrils, which seemed to be stained with blood. "I'll get right on the preparations, Kakuzu! Maybe Jashin-sama will decide you aren't such a fucking heathen after all!"

The missing-nin, Kakuzu, as he was referred to, turned to stare again at the Konoha nin. Black tendrils seemed to seep out of the orifices of his cloak and form into several massive tentacles around him. "Now... it's been a while since I've had some fun."

* * *

The Sandaime was old. He had worn several titles throughout his tenure as a ninja: Hiru-kun, Hiruzen-san, The Professor, The God of Shinobi, Sensei, Hokage-sama, fool. He had lived through three wars and seen each of the Hokage die, each man's death doubling the years that showed on his face. He knew he was old, he knew he should have retired, but then the Kyuubi came and Minato died. He didn't think it would be possible, but from the report of two traumatized genin, yet another decade of weariness had gathered on his face.

"Uchiha-san. Haruno-san. The chunin at the gate said your first C-Rank mission did not exactly... go well."

Sakura hiccupped. Her hair was dishevelled and her clothes looked as if they had been through hell with its owner. Her eyes were puffy and red.

"No sir, it did not." It was Sasuke who replied in a meek, subdued voice. It was quite uncharacteristic of the broody, haughty Uchiha. He wasn't as bad as Sakura, but it was clear the incident had greatly affected him. "Tazuna lied about the circumstances of the mission. He was chased down and cornered by two S-Rank ninja. We were beaten effortlessly."

Sarutobi winced. A genin cell facing off against an S-Rank was bad enough, but two of them? He sighed and pulled a worn pipe out of robes. Lighting it with a mild Katon jutsu, he motioned to them. "I know it must be hard... but if you'd please continue. We need all the information we can on these S-Rank criminals, especially if they are unknown entities."

Sasuke gulped. Slowly, he croaked out, "We were nearing the border to Wave Country when a massive three-bladed scythe came out of nowhere and nearly impaled all of us. Fortunately, Kakashi-sensei sensed it and was able to warn us ahead of time. Our luck ended there." Sasuke grimaced. "Two ninja stepped out of the thckening fog and said they were after Tazuna and would kill us if we didn't hand him over. Kakashi-sensei uncovered his Sharingan and stabbed one of them in the chest with a Raiton technique that covered his right hand. It didn't kill him."

Hiruzen raised his eyebrows and took note of that. Someone surviving a direct hit from Kakashi's Raikiri... that was highly unusual. "The ninja Kakashi sensei had attacked stabbed him with some weird thread attack. Then several more threads came from his body like massive tentacles and started attacking us." Sasuke rubbed his right shoulder. "I awakened my Sharingan, but the attacks were still too fast for us. Most of sensei's wounds were from deflecting attacks or taking hits that would have killed us." Sakura choked on another sob and gently reached for her left rib.

"All of a sudden, Kakashi-sensei started bleeding really fast. The other ninja, he was standing in the middle of a triangle in a circle that was made in what seemed to be blood. He was stabbing himself with what looked like a pike. Hokage-sama, it may sound crazy, but from what I observed, it seemed Kakashi-sensei's wounds were in the same place the other ninja was stabbing himself. Kakashi-sensei's movement got slower and less coordinated until... he was caught by the black tentacles." Sasuke's voice was dull and emotionless, and Sakura had stopped trying to hold back; tears were streaming down her face as she clutched onto Sasuke for support. For once, Sasuke did not push her away.

"The next part was weirdest. Naruto went... berserk. He started growing fangs and the most malevolent, orange chakra started covering him like a shroud. When he looked at me, I was floored by the Killing Intent." Sasuke's face turned dark as he said this. "It wasn't like anything I'd felt before. It felt so primal, so bestial, and so feral. Still, he turned to us and he told us to get away. Naruto charged the two, but the thread-using ninja easily overwhelmed him. He wasn't thinking clearly... his moves were predictable and full of rage. The time it took for him to fight Naruto was enough for me and Sakura to get away. Tazuna was too slow."

"I...see..." The Hokage hadn't felt this much grief since Minato died. Now the Yondaime's only remaining student too was gone... "Is Naruto... dead?"

"We...we don't know, Hokage-sama." answered Sasuke. He pretended to be uncaring most of the time, but in the end, he really did miss the dobe. It touched him even more that despite his crappiness, Naruto had sacrificed himself to let them get away... malicious killing intent none withstanding.

"I see." The Sandaime silently mourned Minato's son, his foster grandson, the ball of sunshine and happiness that not even the ignorance of the populace had managed to dampen. A part of the Hokage was going through the ramifications of losing one of their Elite Jounin as well as the Kyuubi jinchuuriki, but that part was pushed aside for the moment as Sarutobi Hiruzen mourned for the two ninja he had come to think of as his own children. "At the very least, can you provide descriptions of the two ninja you encountered?"

Sasuke nodded. "The first one, Hidan, used the triple-bladed scythe. He had silver hair, and constantly yelled about someone he called 'Jashin-sama.' As I mentioned, he also had the weird blood-jutsu."

"The second ninja had his face almost completely covered by a white hood and face mask. He had a slashed Taki hitai-ite, and he used the weird black threads to attack. He called himself... Kakuzu." The Hokage dropped his pipe. Kakuzu. It couldn't be the same Kakuzu that had challenged Hashirama-san all those years ago, could it? No, that was over half a century ago...

"Is there anything else you'd like to add?" queried Hiruzen.

"There...There is one thing Hokage-sama. Both of them wore black cloaks with red clouds. They said they were part of this group called Akatsuki." The Sandaime's eyes widened as he gripped his fallen pipe. Sasuke had clenched his fists and shown the first signs of emotion, fury, since the beginning of the talk. "Hidan... he said my brother is one of them."

* * *

Naruto groaned and blearily blinked his eyes. He felt like utter crap; every muscle felt like it'd been torn and stretched and all of his bones felt like they were broken and reattached a thousand times over. Breathing was a labored and painful effort and the Uzumaki wanted nothing more than to just collapse and lie down forever. At least his bed was nice and soft.

Wait, what? Naruto shifted around and felt the soft silk sheets and the downy texture they carried. His bed was not this amazing. He had to dig that mattress out of a back alley and fix it up with what little sewing skills he had; it was only slightly better than sleeping on the floor.

He couldn't smell the stale aroma of ramen cups and damp mold, nor did he hear any scuttling creatures in the wall. No, Naruto instead heard the muffled pitter-patter of raindrops from outside. Groaning at the effort, the blonde forced his eyes open and studied the room around him.

He was in an empty room. The walls and floors were painted a dull shade of gray, and aside from his own, there were two other beds in the room, both unoccupied. The room was about as big as his entire apartment, but considering where he lived that wasn't really much. The smell of sterilization, of rubbing alcohol, cotton, and other medical staples, lingered in the air. Naruto guessed he must have been in a hospital.

He didn't seem to be in Konoha... not only were their hospitals in _much _worse condition, he never would have been accepted in any of the hospitals there either. They'd have kicked him out for being a 'demon brat'.

Speaking of the Kyuubi, the fuzzy memories of the Wave incident began to slowly defog. Naruto remembered those two missing-nin, the one that cursed a lot and the one with the creepy green pupil-less eyes. He remembered...

Naruto gulped. He remembered Kakashi-sensei, and that despite his carefree attitude, he had died protecting his students. He recalled going berserk, the extreme anguish at the loss of his teacher, one of the few people Naruto was close to. The Kyuubi was whispering, offering its power to avenge Naruto's sensei. Then it was blackness.

Naruto groaned and rubbed his head in an effort to stave of the incoming headache. That stupid fox; even with its chakra Naruto got his ass handed to him...

"_**Watch it, boy! Who are you calling stupid?!"**_

Naruto froze. His eyes swept over the dull room once more. He didn't see anyone... Who was talking to him?

'"_**Who do you think?" **_the same voice replied mockingly.

"K-Kyuubi?" Naruto asked fearfully.

"_**Who else, boy?' **_the demon fox snarled. _**'You know you're much more of an idiot than I thought."**_

"Hey!" the genin protested. "I'm not an idiot!"

The demon gave off a sound that resembled a scoff. _**"Am I really supposed to believe that, brat? I could list hundreds of reasons off the top of my head."**_

"Oh yeah? Like what?"

_**"For one, you're annoyingly loud. You know you don't have to even talk for me to hear you right?"**_

_'Hmph' _thought Naruto. _'I knew that.'_

_**"No you didn't, brat." **_the Kyuubu replied.

_'Fine, then. But there's nothing else you can say about me! I'm an awesome ninja, and I'm gonna be Hokage!"_

Naruto flinched as an echoing, booming laugh resounded from within his mind, seeming to bounce of the walls of his head. The laughter lingered for several minutes until it finally subsided. _**"You, an awesome ninja? That's the most hilarious thing I've heard in years. You couldn't even beat two humans with the strength of the most powerful of the Tailed Beasts!"**_

_"You heard them! They were S-Rank missing-nin! What was I supposed to do about it?" _Naruto said, trying to defend himself.

_**"I can't believe I'm stuck in such a weakling of a mortal." **_The Kyuubi sneered. _**"I could have crushed those two fools with a mere thought!"**_

Naruto's reply was cut off by him noticing the door of his room open. He absently noted it didn't squeak or make a sound; it was probably well maintained. In stepped an indigo-haired woman, who seemed to be somewhere in her early-twenties. She had a paper rose tucked into her hair and a small circular piercing just below her lip. Naruto found she had an elegant, mature sort of beauty around her. The rest of her body was in the same black cloak with red clouds that Hidan and Kakuzu wore, so Naruto found himself instantly on guard, setting his fingers into the familiar Kage-Bunshin seal under his blanket.

"Uzumaki Naruto?" the woman asked with a... concerned voice? "My name is Konan. If you're feeling better, I would like to talk to you."

* * *

**Jutsu List:**

**Raikiri (雷切) Lightning Cutter: S-Rank ninjutsu. Kakashi's signature jutsu. It is a more refined and enhanced version of the Chidori. Kakashi coats his hand in Lightning Chakra, which gives it incredible piercing power, then dashes towards his opponent at high speed. Kakashi has also been shown to be able to extend this ability to a weapon, which gave kunai the ability to go through several boulders without dipping in speed. Unfortunately, due to its high chakra cost, Kakashi can only use Raikiri up to four times a day.**

* * *

**Japanese terms:**

**Nami no Kuni: Land of Waves  
**

**Mizu no Kuni: Land of Water  
**

**Hitai-ite: Forehead Protector  
**

**Dobe: Dead Last **

**Hokage: Fire Shadow  
**

**Kyuubi: Nine-Tails  
**

* * *

**So my friend told me to add a list of Japanese terms at the end of every chapter like Kenchi618 (one of THE BEST writers ever), so I figured why not. I apologize for the short chapter size but I felt this was enough for a Chapter 1. I'll try to get the next chapter up as soon as possible.**

**If you can, please leave a review; I feed off of them. They're super delicious.**

**I hope I did well for a first shot and I'll see you all next time.**

**EDIT: Thanks to DarkFlareX for pointing out some errors in my list of Japanese terms! ^_^**


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